Hannah Healy (actress, filmmaker, and doula) brought a TV pilot, “Birth Is For P*ssies” to SXSW for the TV Pilot competition. The series focuses on giving birth and is based on Hannah’s experiences as a doula for a decade. Hannah is an actor, writer and director based in NYC and London. As an actor, she most recently appeared as Charlotte Astor in season 3 of HBO’s “The Gilded Age“.
Producing the TV pilot with Hannah is Celine Sutter, a writer, director, and producer born and raised in New York City. Celine recently earned her MFA in Writing/Directing from Columbia University.
Hannah Shealy
PLOT SYNOPSIS
The synopsis of the first episode of “Birth Is for P*ussies” shows rookie doula (Hannah Shealy) thrust into her first birth with a mother she’s never met. After a rocky start, she quickly learns that supporting women through labor is messier, funnier, and more profound than any doula training could have prepared her for.
I found Hannah Shealy very sympathetic in the role. I also loved the Tribeca penthouse where Hannah visits a pregnant couple (Danny Defararri and Madeline Wise), an apartment which had a jaw-dropping view. I’m not a New Yorker, but I was in town when JFK, Jr., tragically died on July 16, 1999. Residents of New York City were leaving flowers in front of his Tribeca building. I wondered if this location might have been near where young John F. Kennedy, Jr. lived. The view and decor were opulent.
MADELINE WISE
Madeline Wise had already distinguished herself in the SXSW film “Chili Finger.” She was equally good in this as the pregnant wife who doesn’t want her spouse to know about her herpes diagnosis. That might set up some conflict to come (during delivery) but conflict has to be there. If I learned anything from the University of Iowa’s Writing program it is that conflict is a necessity, and it is slow-played or downplayed here.
Celine Sutter.
While Hannah was lovely and the mother-to-be was as stressed as you would anticipate anyone in labor would be, the conflict quotient for the brief episode I saw was slim. I’m no expert on giving birth (“I don’t know nothin’ ‘bout birthin’ no babies”)—partially because I had 2 C-sections for medical reasons— but this series needs a serious elevation in the conflict levels or I fear it will be DOA.
TREND
On the cultural side, Hannah and Celine are tapping into something timely. After decades of relative stability, the U.S. birthrate has dropped more than 25 percent since 2007.
A recent “60 Minutes” segment highlighted how delaying childbirth—once associated mainly with privileged college women—is now common across all demographics. Women in their early 30s currently have the highest birthrate, and women in their early 40s are more likely to give birth than teenagers. Whether this shift will offset the long‑term effects of declining birthrates remains to be seen. The number of births to women once they turn 44 hasn’t declined at all.
THE ZEITGEST
Donald J. Trump’s anti-immigrant ICE raids for his daily quotas of picking up citizens and non-citizens on the streets of cities nationwide and ejecting them from the country, justly or unjustly, has contributed to statistics that show the nation’s birthrate declining precipitously. Ironically, many of the “illegals” being ejected so vigorously are needed for the many jobs that our Caucasian citizens do not seem willing to do.
“We spent decades shaming women for having kids under the wrong circumstances, for not having their ducks in a row,” said one expert. “Now they are holding up their end of the bargain.” Almost half of the country’s 30-year-old women are childless.
“SIXTY MINUTES” DID A PROGRAM ON THIS
Putting off having children in order to finish school or establish one’s self or simply to live life a little before “settling down” has become the norm. As one expert said, “It used to be that the only people who put off having kids were college girls from more privileged backgrounds. But now it’s everybody, with teenagers and less educated women leading the charge. “ It’s too early to say whether those pregnancies will be enough to help the U.S. reverse the ill effects of a falling birthrate.
BACKGROUND
We can assume that the birth control gains of the sixties and seventies (now being reversed by the GOP) which gave women control over their own bodies has contributed to women deciding not to give birth if they do not feel ready to be a responsible parent. Maybe they were too young or all alone. Maybe they were unemployed. Maybe their own mothers were struggling to give their daughters the future they never got to have, when they became pregnant in their teens.
BIO
I have two children, a son and a daughter. I was pregnant at 22 and 42. My youngest, a daughter in her thirties, is now hoping to have a child in the immediate future. She and her partner actually lost a baby to a rare anomaly very recently.
She has had the opportunity I did not have to travel the world, find herself, and figure out what she wants out of life prior to marriage and bearing children, thanks to the birth control pill and the right to a legal abortion nationwide (which I fought for in the seventies.)
MOTHERHOOD ON FILM
Across film and TV, motherhood is being portrayed with more honesty, whether in “Night Bitch,” “Tully,” or the upcoming “Margo’s Got Money Troubles.” I’m all for showing birth in a way that reflects reality more than “Knocked Up” ever did. With more conflict and depth, “Birth Is For P*ssies” could help do exactly that.
